RECENT DISCOVERIES IN EGYPT 



RECENT discoveries in Eg^^pt 

 have carried the record of Egyp- 

 tian civilization back definitely 

 for 1,000 years and have given light 

 to what was happening during i,coo 

 years more. In other words, Egyptian 

 history has been brought to light for 

 nearly 2,000 years before the building 

 of the pyramids, which happened about 

 4000 B. C. As Prof. W. M. Flinders- 

 Petrie, in an article in Harper'' s Maga- 

 zine for October, says, ' ' We even know 

 what was going on in every generation 

 for some 2,000 years before that time 

 [building of the pyramids] far more 

 than the later Egyptians themselves 

 knew. ' ' 



It is the discoveries of treasures of 

 gold and ivory and beautiful stones in 

 the royal tombs at Abydos through the 

 persevering and efficient efforts of Prof. 

 Flinders-Petrie and members of his 

 party that have brought to light the 

 history of this remote past. The old- 

 est record of human history is the state- 

 ment that ten kings reigned in Abydos, 

 in upper Egypt, during the 350 years 

 before Mena (4777 B. C. ), who founded 

 the united kingdom of the whole land 

 and is counted as the first king of the 

 first dynasty. Four of the tombs of 

 these earliest kings were identified sev- 

 eral years ago, as well as those of Mena 

 and his successors, but their significance 

 was not understood until this spring, 

 when a large number of small objects 

 were found in the tombs at Abydos. 

 The most surprising discovery were four 

 bracelets belonging to the Queen of King 

 Zer, about 4700 B. C, some 2,000 years 

 earlier than any other jewelry thus far 

 identified. The bracelets were wrought 

 with the most ingenious and delicate 

 workmanship. Even a magnifier did 

 not reveal the joints, so perfect was the 

 soldering. The finest bracelet is formed 

 of alternate plaques of gold and tur- 



quois, each surmounted with the roj^al 

 hawk and paneled to imitate the front 

 of the tomb or palace. 



It seems marvelous that the jewelry 

 had not been previously discovered. In 

 early times the tombs were broken into 

 and ransacked. Some plunderer had 

 broken up the queen's body, and being 

 disturbed in his plundering had broken 

 off an arm of the mummy and thrust it 

 into a crevice in the wall. Centuries 

 later, about 1400 B. C, the tomb was 

 cleaned out and a shrine of Osiris built 

 in it, and for a thousand years every 

 visitor passed within a few feet of the 

 fragment. Two thousand years later 

 the Copts utterly destroyed the shrine 

 and the other royal tombs, and yet the 

 arm lay untouched. Three years ago a 

 French explorer carefully examined the 

 whole space, and yet the arm remained 

 unseen until one of Dr. Flinders- Petrie's 

 workmen noticed it and called his atten- 

 tion to it. The arm was opened care- 

 fully and the bracelets revealed. 



Professor Flinders-Petrie believes that 

 during the 57 years of King Zer's reign 

 a rapid crystallization of art took place. 

 Before his reign everything was archaic 

 and tentative, but afterward vigorous 

 and perfect. He believes ' ' this sudden 

 fixation of the final forms is what is 

 also seen in Greek art, where the inter- 

 val of 40 years between the Persian war 

 and the Parthenon sufficed for the step 

 from archaic work to the highest perfec- 

 tion, after which all else was a gradual 

 decay. ' ' Fragments were found of hun- 

 dreds of different forms of vases cut in 

 hard stones. In the tombs of one of 

 the kings of the second dynasty, about 

 4373 B. C, were seven stone basins with 

 gold covers, a whole dinner service in 

 thin beaten copper, and over a hundred 

 models of food. Another prize was a 

 royal scepter formed of cylinders of rich, 

 red sard held together by a copper irod. 



